Welly have dropped their latest single, ‘The Roundabout Racehorse’, a wry, oddly touching indie-pop anthem about returning home and feeling like a slightly shinier version of your old self but still stuck in the same small-town fishbowl.
The track lands ahead of the band’s debut album, Big in the Suburbs, which arrives on 21st March. Its origins are as unglamorous as its subject matter: a damp university basement, fresh from a trip home, written in 15 minutes. It’s a sharp, funny take on the time warp of homecomings, where people either tell you how much you’ve changed or remind you that you’re still the same awkward kid who got a terrible Year 8 haircut.
“Going home is a checkpoint, you feel the same, but everyone comments on how different you are,” Welly explains. “You can get tethered to this idea of your past self, unable to escape that first girlfriend or that terrible haircut. You wish you could feel like a Roman gladiator making his Nostos, but in fact, you end up coming home with a hangover and the cat’s claw marks on your jeans.”
Naturally, the music video leans into Welly’s surreal sense of humour. Dressed in full jockey silks, the band cruise around their hometown in a Honda Jazz with a pantomime horse, taking clear inspiration from Ghost Town-era Specials.
“We worked with our school friend and tolerant confidant Harvey Payne, as we have for all of our videos, filming Joe’s Honda Jazz round our hometown, trying to rip off The Specials’ ‘Ghost Town’ video. Give it a watch, we go to McDonald’s in Jockey silks and a Pantomime Horse costume,” Welly says.
Big in the Suburbs is shaping up to be a proper British indie-pop gem, a self-produced, DIY affair packed with sharp, observational songwriting that turns the everyday into something theatrical. Across its 14 tracks, Welly dives into high street decline (‘Shopping’), dead-end romances (‘Cul-De-Sac’), and the strange poetry of suburban existence.
“I could say something very clever about suburban tableaus, provincial minuets, the motifs of traffic, dead-end roads, big fish in small ponds, but that would be silly,” Welly admits. “This is the child’s-first-painting going on the fridge. I’m very proud of this. It’s fun, and music hasn’t been fun for a long time, especially British music. This is a lob in the right direction.”
They’re not just talking the talk either. Welly have been grinding away at the DIY circuit, booking over 100 gigs, launching a live album/mockumentary (Live in a Village Hall), and rallying an audience of like-minded suburban dreamers.
The band’s early influences range from Blur’s kitchen-sink storytelling to Pet Shop Boys’ intellectual electro-pop, with a splash of Girls Aloud-style maximalism for good measure.
Welly are currently tearing through the UK on the DORK Hype List tour, culminating in a sold-out show in their hometown of Southampton. If their scrappy, infectious live shows are anything to go by, Big in the Suburbs is set to be one of 2025’s must-hear indie debuts.
DORK Hype List tour dates
- 6th Feb – Leeds, Oporto
- 7th Feb – Newcastle, Grove
- 8th Feb – Manchester, The Deaf Institute
- 9th Feb – Glasgow, McChuills
- 12th Feb – London, Colours Hoxton
- 13th Feb – Southampton, Heartbreakers (SOLD OUT)
- 15th Feb – Nottingham, Bodega
Instore appearances
- 21st March – Resident Records, Brighton
- 23rd March – Rough Trade East, London
Big in the Suburbs drops 21st March. In the meantime, watch ‘The Roundabout Racehorse’ below and get ready for a nostalgic, weirdly poignant trip back home.
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